6 facts about Sardar Sarovar Dam which Modi will inaugurate on his 67th birthday

Here are six facts about the Sardar Sarovar Dam that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate on his 67th birthday on September 17th Sunday. The dam has forever been in controversy.

Here are six facts about the Sardar Sarovar Dam:

The foundation stone of the Sardar Sarovar Dam was laid by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on April 5, 1961. It is the second biggest dam in the world after Grand Coulee Dam in the US.

The dam has 30 gates and each gate weighs over 450 tonnes. It takes an hour to close them.

The dam has already earned Rs 16,000 crore, which is more than double the cost of the mega structure.

The dam has storage capacity of 4.73 million cubic metres.

The construction of the dam was not exactly smooth. In 1985, the protests by Medha Patkar and other activists slowed down the construction of the dam.

The current height of the dam is 138 metres that makes it the biggest structure ever made in the country. The Narmada Control Authority had ordered the gates of the Sardar Sarovar Project be shut on June 16. The gates of the country's highest dam were closed the following day.

OneIndia News

Subscribe to Oneindia. For breaking news & Instant updates throughout the day